Today my family and I put down our first dog. She was 16 years old and had lived an extraordinarily long life, especially for a dog of her breed. She's been with me since I was a child and I will miss her a great deal.

• I was 7 years old. We lived in California at the time and we all got in the car and drove an hour or so up the coast to visit a Dalmatian breeder.
• The breeder was very wealthy and lived in a huge house. We walked around to the backyard where all the puppies were.
• As soon as they saw us, all of the puppies ran and rushed at us, so excited.
  • All the puppies except for one, that is.
• We chose the shy little girl puppy who stayed back while all her siblings greeted us.
• Not only was she the shyest, she was easily the most spotted.
  • In Dalmatian breeding, the less spotted a dog is, the better it is said to look and the more show quality it is said to have so I'm sure they were glad we picked her.
• She had two jet black ears and a huge black patch over her eye and was covered in those trademark black spots.
• We put her in the back of the van and started the drive home. She cried the whole way and I remember being afraid she was going to get carsick and throw up.
• On the way back we all brainstormed names for our new little girl and my dad randomly threw out "Sasha". For some reason we all took to it and she was Sasha from then on.
  • Or some of the various nicknames she acquired over the years: Sasha girl, Dada, Didi, Didi girl
• As a puppy, she was extremely playful. She tore up any new toy we bought her within the day.
• We often bought her pigs ears to chew on too, which she enjoyed immensely.
• Her favorite place to snooze was in the laundry room in our basket of dirty laundry.
• When she was young, she often got loose, digging under the fence in the backyard or chewing through her tether in the frontyard. This was always a scary experience for us. Sasha, on the other hand, seemed to find it extremely funny. Running around the neighborhood and eluding our outstretched hands. She was nearly impossible to catch and we always worried that one time, she wouldn't come back or that she would get hit by a car.
  • When we still lived in California, our neighbors hated dogs, or maybe they just hated Sasha, but we would often find cuts in her tether in the front yard. They were clearly not bite marks from Sasha because they were very close to the base of her neck where she wouldn't be able to reach and they were straight cuts as if with scissors. We always suspected it was out neighbors trying to make it easier for her to run off and never come back.
• Luckily, as she aged, she mellowed. For the past couple of years, we have been able to let her come and go out the front door freely when she needed to go to the bathroom. She rarely left the front yard and we never had to worry about her straying too far.
• One thing that NEVER changed her entire life was her extreme food motivation. Food drives dogs in different ways. Sasha was OBSESSED. You could not enter the kitchen without her following right behind you. Even when she was so old she could barely walk, she would still always get up and follow you into the kitchen.
  • If you held out anything towards her, she automatically assumed it was food and lunged for it, whether it was edible or not. Bite now, ask questions later.
• When she was around 6 or 7 and we had moved to Virginia, we decided to get a new dog, a rescued boxer named Sinbad.
• Sinbad was abused as a puppy and remains wary of strangers to this day. He was always very agressive and often attacked Sasha when he got overly anxious.
• As much as I love Sinbad, I felt bad for Sasha because for the remainder of her life she was second dog behind Sinbad. She was in constant fear of him and would often not come in a room if he was in it.
  • He randomly attacked her now and then up until her last days.
• I was away at school in Richmond when it was time for her to go.
  • I had been home in Fredericksburg a week or two prior and I spent alot of time with Sasha, knowing this would be one of the last if not the last time I saw her.
  • I got a call from my mom that she was too far gone and she was taking her to the vet to say goodbye.
  • A few hours later I got a text from my mom that simply said, "God bless our spotted California pup". It seemed the most heartbreaking but perfect thing to say. I read and it just started crying. I was in my car, preparing to start it up after just having finished grocery shopping.
  • Goodbye, my girl.